Regional dialogue on rule of law

The EU Strategy for Central Asia recognises that human rights, rule of law, good governance and democratisation underpin the long-term stability and economic development of Central Asia. In complement to the human rights dialogues, which are directly conducted by the EU with all five Central Asian countries, the Rule of Law Platform organises regional dialogue fora. These meetings allow reviewing the judicial sector in the region, providing recommendations, identifying regional programmes of common interest, providing inputs to discussions at national level, and enhancing coordination of donors assistance.

Regional dialogue fora on rule of law issues with the Central Asian countries are key to achieve the first expected result of the Platform, which consists in ¨reinforced and improved dialogue and exchanges, leading to experiences, lessons learned and international standards and practices shared between EU and Central Asian actors and between Central Asian countries themselves¨.

During Phase I, the Platform organised the following regional seminars :

– regional seminar on ¨Living with the rule of law – Equality of rights and opportunities for women¨ (Dushanbe, Tajikistan, 14-15.11.2014). See recommendations, press release and report.

In the course of Phase II, the Platform will organise more regional seminars focusing on issues on the ¨work agenda¨ decided by the Ministers of Justice of the EU and the Central Asian States at the Fourth Conference on rule and law (Astana, Kazakhstan, 14-15.11.2014), in their joint communiqué. The work agenda is comprised of :

. Criminal law and criminal procedure

. Adminisreative law and administrative procedure

. Constitutional law

. Commercial/economic law

. Judicial reform.

As reflected in the work plan for Phase II, the Platform will organise regional seminars on the following topics : Administrative Law, Legal protection for economic operators, Networks of legal training institutions in Central Asia, Juvenile justice, and other topics, and a meeting of the working group on judicial capacity.